Springing out of National Novel Writing Month, a group that enjoys writing throughout the year! All ages and abilities welcome!
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
A Writer’s Rule Book
From Hunter’s Writing
WriteWorld: Tips on giving critique
Giving critique can be just as daunting as receiving critique, but learning how to give feedback teaches writers how to read critically and identify issues and state them poignantly. This helps us look at our own stuff with a more critical eye and become better writers.
How to Write a Fight Scene (Rebloggable Version)
Admin Note: This post is a rebloggable copy of our page on fight scenes. The page is being phased out, so from now on all updates will be made on this post and not on the page.
Among the typically difficult scenes writers face in their stories, the fight scene definitely ranks high on the list. Below you will find several resources with tips for writing a good fight scene.
- Action with a Side of Zombies: One of our articles focused specifically on writing action scenes. Bonus: the examples all include zombies.
- ArchetypesAndAllusions: An article on the three main types of fighters and their various approaches to kickin’ ass (or not).
- TheCreativePenn.com: Alan Baxter, speculative fiction author, gives some great advice on characterization, setting, martial style, and cliches.
- StoryHack.com: A PDF that takes you through writing a fight scene step by step by Randy Ingermanson, compiled by Bryce Beattie.
- MarilynnByerly.com: An extremely good guide to writing fight scenes. This guide includes tips on character viewpoint, mapping the fight, and tricks for writing each type of fight.
- Shelfari.com: This site is an interview with famed fantasy author R.A. Salvatore on how to write great fight scenes.
- TheBusinessOfWriting: C. Patrick Schulze gives some good, solid advice on identifying and writing your fight scene.
- EzineArticles.com: Marq McAlister explains how to make a fight scene pack some serious punch. This article is good for fine-tuning.
- Martin Turner: Focusing specifically on sword-fighting scenes, Martin Turner writes in great detail on every conceivable detail of this type of time-honored fight scene.
- SeriousPixie.com: Susan tells you about the three types of fight scene writers and explains how to fix the problems that arise for each type.
- David Alan Lucus: This multi-part guide gives advice in exhaustive detail on how to write an awesome fight scene.
- NightFoot: This Tumblr post offers some great tips for writing fight scenes.
These links provide advice specifically for writing battle scenes:
- Gerri Blanc: eHow’s article on battle scenes is a basic step-by-step list for you. It’s a good introduction to writing battle scenes.
- StormTheCastle.com: This article takes you through an in-depth guide on how to write battle scenes for fantasy stories.
- Rhonda Leigh Jones: Jones lists some dos and don’ts of writing battle scenes.
Other resources:
- List of Martial Arts: Looking for a fighting style? Find it here!
- List of Weapons: Every type of weapon you can think of is listed here.
- List of Military Tactics: From troop movements to siege warfare, this list has got you covered.
- Asylum.com: A few examples of awesome battle tactics from history.
- BadassOfTheWeek.com: Get some inspiration for awesome fight scenes and fighting characters from this compendium of badassitude.
- Thearmedgentleman: Austin has offered to share his knowledge on weaponry with any writers who have questions. Thanks, Austin!
We hope this helps! If you have another link or a tip for how to write fight/battle scenes, hit up our ask box and let us know!
WriteWorld: Are you a real writer?
- You constantly edit. Whether it’s while you’re driving down the street and pass a misspelled sign, or grammatical errors in Facebook posts, you fix errors constantly in your mind—and sometimes not so silently.
- You’re highly…
WriteWorld: 10 ways to hit your readers in the gut
One of the strongest bonds that link us to our favorite stories is the emotional tie, or books that sink a fist right into our guts. When you finished a book where you couldn’t let go of after the last page, chances are, the author successfully punched you in the…
(Source: keyboardsmashwriters.blogspot.com)
like Mr Frost said, “The best way out is always through “. #justkeepwriting #keepmoving
I wanted to talk about using visuals to help organize your writing. It is something I find really helpful, and hopefully you can take some of these ideas and use them as well! These are things you could plan ahead of time, or add to as you go along.
Bulletin Boards
Whether these are actual cork boards with pushpins, a binder and a hole puncher, a notebook you carry around to jot down notes, a pinterest account or a tumblr page… one thing I find helpful is collecting pictures, poems, lyrics, etc. Anything that I see that inspires a story.
You can do this in general throughout your daily life to keep you thinking about writing, but you can also do this specifically for whatever story you are currently writing.
Character Mapping
There are two different strategies I’ve found helpful for doing this. First being the “family tree” method and second being the web method that they used to make us do in middle school for “brainstorming” an essay.
Basically character mapping is just an interactive way of making a list of all your characters. The main reason it is helpful to mark down relationships, friendships, coworkers, etc for you characters is continuity. I find generally that it is easier to do it this way than it is to have pages of notes to flip back and forth from.
Geographical and Other Maps
When I’m writing a story that takes place in a fantasy world or another planet, or even sometimes on earth in a real place it helps to draw or use an actual map. Mark down important places your character goes, mark down areas they will meet other important characters, if it is an adventure-type story chart the path your characters will take.
If you have a clear picture of the layout of someone’s house make a quick map of the floorplan! That way when your character needs to snoop in a friend’s backpack if they ask to use bathroom your character can say “first door on the left” and it will be continuous with that time you said they woke up hungover and stumbled down the hallway and took a sharp left before vomiting on the bathroom floor.
Quick Sketches
If you have a clear idea of what your characters look like, and you have any drawing ability above stick figures, make a quick sketch of what they look like. Especially if you are stuck on a description. Pay attention to their height in relation to other characters, eye color, hair color, the type of clothes they wear. If you are very talented maybe event body language and facial expressions, but I wouldn’t spend TOO much time on it, you don’t want it to take away from writing time.
Being able to visualize you characters can help you better describe them verbally, it helps them become more real. This also works for locations. If you can’t draw another good idea if you get stuck might be to open up The Sims or any other avatar creator and try to combine ready-made elements into something that resembles the character you have in your mind!
Progress Posters
I made myself a poster with all of my personal goals and rules for NaNo, as well as a daily schedule with certain times blocked for writing. I also added little activities to the bottom to keep track of my daily word count and my overall progress.
Block Box
This is your one stop writer’s block cure. It’s not necessarily a visual aid but I felt like it still sort of fit with the theme of this post. Have your friends give you a word, phrase, image, or lyric. Write down a list of short writing prompts or directional questions. Collect all of these things on scraps of paper and put them in a jar or shoebox. When you’re feeling stuck, take an idea out and try to incorporate it into your story!
You can find our virtual Block Box here: http://writrs.tumblr.com/tagged/block+box
Some of these may take a bit of time, but it might be a good consideration if you find yourself stuck or distracted. An hour spent working on something novel-related is better than an hour spent on Tumblr or watching TV!
Happy Writing,
-Camille
Pixars 22 Rules of Story Telling
9 is worth the price of admission, holy crap.
This is genius. So many great writing tips!
And this is why Pixar is a master in their field.
Why do I feel so weird reblogging this… this is the weekend dammit! Anyway, great advice.
